POSITIONING STATEMENT FOR “OLD SPICE”

The “Smell like a Man, Man” campaign:

The “Smell like a Man, Man” campaign is an advertising campaign in the United States created by ad agency Widen + Kennedy for the brand “Old Spice”. Old Spice is a division of Procter & Gamble that offers a product line of men’s grooming products, including antiperspirant, deodorant, body wash, body spray, and fragrance which consists of cologne and after shave at a cheap price. Its main brand competitors in the market are Axe, Gillette and Dove for Men. In recent years there has been a huge hype to social media for means of marketing and advertising for many companies. Old Spice is a perfect example of this. The “Smell like a Man, Man” campaign, featuring the handsome “Old Spice Guy” (former NFL wide receiver Isaiah Mustafa) was launched just prior to the 2010 Superbowl and quickly became a viral video sensation. The ad was one of the most talked about commercials and helped to boost Old Spice sales during a period of intense competitive activity. This campaign wasn’t only about television ads, but involved also social media like Facebook and Twitter, where Old Spice invited customers could submit questions to be answered personally by the Old Spice Guy. Youtube was also in the game, this happened because nearly 200 personalized video responses to the questions were created and posted on YouTube, including those to Ashton Kutcher, Alyssa Milano and ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos, creating new benchmarks for consumer engagement. Old Spice has been singled out as the best practical example of social media marketing. Their campaign taps into the consumer insight that the women are more likely to believe men should spend time and money investing in their appearance, and social media was used to engage consumers in an interactive dialogue with the brand.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES

Behind this campaign there should be one main purpose: to increase brand awareness (especially brand recognition ) through the use of tv and social media, in order to attract different kind of users, from young men ( the so-called “Millenials”) to women. Another marketing objective should be to try to change the appeal of the product towards new generations.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The target audience of this campaign should be composed first of all by the existing customers, in order to increase their loyalty to the brand.Secondly, another important target audience should be males in general (OBS) with a particular attention to those customers that are loyal to competitive brands (OBL) as Dove for Men, Axe and so on. The third and maybe the most important target group should be the so-called “influencers”, like females. The “Smell like a Man, Man” campaign also targeted women because they tend to be the ones who buy bath and soap products. Old Spice, in fact, speak directly to them, saying “ I am the man your man could smell like”, encouraging them to go out and buying this product in order to have “your man” smell like the Old Spice guy.
In order to develop a more accurate target audience, we should divide them based on the following criteria:

Demographics: The Old Spice customer will consist of males who are between he ages of 15 and 35, and are most lily high school and college students, or young professionals. Another target audience could be older men who often depend on females to make their purchase for them. In the customer base, we should also consider females over the age of 18 that have at least one son, a boyfriend or husband that they would purchase Old Spice products for.
Geographic: The specific target should be american people that are living in big and university cities, as well as medium or low class people, due to the low price of the Old Spice product.
Personality: Young men and women that are willing to try new products and purchase products that are part of the latest trends in men’s grooming.

FRAME OF REFERENCE

The frame of reference would definitely be men’s grooming products market.

IDU MESOMODEL

Since Old Spice is a differentially positioned brand, we must identify the strongest benefits that the product gives to customers, or, in other words, the primary motive to acquire it rather than another brand of glooming products. The driving motive, in this case, is the problem removal. The primary benefit from Old Spice antiperspirant, for example, is that it provides 24-hour wetness and odor relief. Along with antiperspirants, all other Old Spice products provide the customer with a variety of fresh scents to remove body odor for the active male. Another purchase motivation could be the social approval linked to the fact that Old Spice will make you smell good and feel clean.

A-B-E MICROMODEL

The campaign should focus primarily on the tangible benefits that Old Spice can give to customers. Again, they are deeply connected to the sense of freshness and cleaners that Old Spice can give. Secondly, I think that the campaign should try to focus on the emotions that the ad can give. In the most notable Old Spice commercial, “The man You Man could smell like”, the brand uses the power of gender stereotypes, humor, and the use of rhetorical strategies in order to connect with the audience and to convince them to buy or to switch to Old Spice. They try to play into the audience’s emotions through humor and sex appeal, which are the main emotions linked to this kind of product.

POSITIONING STATEMENT

Summarizing all these aspect in a final positioning statement for this Old Spice campaign would be:

To post-adolescent males ( Target audience ) who demand superior quality grooming products, Old Spice is the product line that offers you the most effective and best scented grooming products ( Frame of Reference) than its competitor at market price ( Point of difference ). 


POSITIONING STATEMENT FOR “ABSOLUT VODKA”

The “In an Absolute World” campaign:

Absolut Vodka, one of the most famous premium brand of vodka in the world, had become famous mainly due to its advertising campaigns. The shape of the bottle of Absolute is very unique and is emphasized in all their advertisements. For about 25 years, the focus on the product has been the main theme in advertisements for the brand. The first ad campaign, called “Absolut perfection” and created in 1981, is still famous and popular today. In that campaign, they had clever concepts like “Absolut L.A”, which showed a swimming pool shaped like a bottle, or “Absolut Warhol”, which showed the painting of a bottle by the artist. As we said before, the product itself and the shape of it was the main character in the ads.
In 2007, Absolut Vodka decided to begin its “In an Absolute World” campaign, in which the company posted various and often fanciful scenarios of what the target audience might think would constitute a perfect, or “Absolut” reality. Examples are politician with a nose that grows when he's lying; a baggage carousel with different colored, easy to identify bags; and an ideal man than can be put together from a box. The campaign was designed to be an inspiring, humorous and integrated campaign about what an Absolute World might look like and to begin a discussion about both universal and everyday subjects, as well as to challenge customers to express their own visions of the world. For the first time in 25 years, Absolute was trying to avoid an excessive emphasis on the shape of the bottle (of course the bottle was still in the ad, but this time it wasn’t in the centre of the scene) in favor of a more precise focus on the message that Absolute Vodka is the closest thing to perfection on Earth. The campaign included commercials and video clips as well as online ads, print ads, billboards and event marketing. Absolute turned its own website into an online community where visitors can share and discuss their visions of an “Absolut World”, create and upload images ( the campaign was really involved in user generated contents) films, worlds, and it gives the opportunity to browse and comment the visions of others people.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES

Since the vodka market is really overcrowded ( from 2003 to 2007 over 240 new brands of vodka came), the marketing objectives of the “In an Absolut World” campaign should include rousting sales growth and re-enstablishing and re-cementing the Absolute’s position in an extremely competitive environment. In other words, Absolute should try to increase brand awareness (especially brand recognition). Another objective should be the creation of a sort of interaction between the brand and the customers, in order to give them a possibility to interact, get involved and associated with the brand.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The campaign should be focused primarily on people who use Absolut as their main brand. In other words, its own customer base. Another target could definitely be OBL and OBS because, as we’ve already said, Absolut must face a fierce competition in the market, so it’s very important to try to stand apart from the other vodka brands. In order to develop a more accurate target audience, we should describe them in more details based on the following criteria:

Demographic: the target of the campaign are men and women from all over the world from 21 years old, that is the minimum age of drinking (thinking about USA), to 35 years old. This class of people is the so-called “urbanites”.
Geographic: This campaign should be for the whole world, but with an aim to the US market, which is one of the most competitive one for vodka in general.
Psychographic: Urbanites, people that live in big/medium/cities.
Social Class: due to the high price of the product, high/medium wealthy class.
Personality: the perfect target audience must be people interested in new trends in fashion, music and design and they typically know what’s going on in these areas. They must be characterized as open-minded, active and passionate people. All these characteristics perfectly resemble Absolut Vodka brand.

FRAME OF REFERENCE

The frame of reference should be definitely the vodka market.

IDU MESOMODEL

Since Absolute Vodka is a differentially positioned brand, we must identify the strongest benefits that the product gives to customers, or, in other words, the primary motive to acquire it rather than another brand of coffee. In this case, I think that the driving motive is the social approval linked to the quality of the product itself. Absolut has great breadth and depth remembrance in the premium vodka segment. It is considered as a vodka of quality, superior taste and price, with a different design. It is associated with fun, celebration, joy, enthusiasm, self-esteem and all of this takes us to the theme of social approval.

A-B-E MICROMODEL

The campaign should focus primarily on the emotion that the potential customer feel in consuming Absolut vodka. This would emphasize the affective relation that the consumer would create with the brand. The affective relation with the brand could be boosted because the campaign try to raise questions inside the consumer’s mind, like: “What if everything in the world were approached with the same ideals with which Absolut approaches vodka?”. The campaign, through this type of reverse thinking, try to provoke the audience to express themselves and their opinions, in order to create a connection and a dialogue with the brand.

POSITIONING STATEMENT

Summarizing all these aspects in a final positioning statement for this Absolut campaign would be:

To urbanites that love to enjoy free time ( target audience ), Absolut Vodka is the quintessential vodka, true vodka, ( frame of reference ) the standard by which they will judge other Vodkas.